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Updated: Sep 6, 2025
Software-Assisted Quantitative Measurement of Osteoarthritic Subchondral Bone Thickness
Published on: March 18, 2022
High TRB3 expression induces chondrocyte autophagy and senescence in osteoarthritis cartilage
Yanqing Gu1, Ren Yan1, Yang Wang1
1Department of Orthopedics, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
Objective:
Osteoarthritis is closely related to aging. Tribbles homologue 3 (TRB3) is found to display age-related expression and contributes to the regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation and fibrosis. In this study, we aimed to investigate the potential involvement of TRB3 in cartilage autophagy and aging in osteoarthritis.
Methods:
Cartilage tissue samples were collected from osteoarthritis patients who received joint replacement and cadaveric donors. In osteoarthritis cartilage tissue, we analyzed autophagy- and senescence-associated proteins using immunohistochemistry and western blot (WB), in vitro, to confirm the role played by TRB3 in the process of autophagy, cell senescence, and inflammation, small interfering RNA (siRNA) was used for TRB3 knockdown in cells.
Results:
We found increased level of p62, decreased level of microtubule-associated protein 1A/1B-light chain 3 (LC3) and beclin-1 in cartilage, and increased level of p16 and p21 in tissue samples collected from osteoarthritis patients, indicating decreased autophagy and increased cell senescence. TRB3 knockdown significantly rescued, in vitro, the reduced autophagy and elevated cell senescence in human chondrocyte.
Conclusions:
Interfering with TRB3 expression in cartilage may serve as a target in the prevention and treatment of age-related osteoarthritis.
